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Mr. A. E. Anderson exhibited a large number of photographs 

 of the more important fossil mammals in the Department of 

 Vertebrate Palaeontology of the America,n Museum of Natural 

 History, New York, showing the methods of mounting fossil 

 skeletons. For comparison, a set of photographs was exhibited 

 with the skeleton supports eliminated from view, thus adding to 

 the pictorial value of pose in the specimens. 



Dr. P. Chalmers Mitchell, F.R.S., Secretary of the Society, 

 gave an account, in the absence of the author, of a Memoir by 

 Lt.-Ool. Neville Manders, R.A.M.C, F.Z.S., on the phenomena 

 of Mimicry amongst Butterflies in Bourbon, Mauritius, and Ceylon. 

 The author had investigated the habits by observation and ex- 

 periment of the insectivorous reptiles and birds of these islands, 

 and had been unable to accept the view that their relations to 

 butterflies were such as to be effective in pi-oducing Batesian or 

 Miillerian mimicry. 



Mr. R. I. PococK, F.R.S., F.L.S., read a paper on the Palata- 

 bility of some British Insects, with Notes on the significance of 

 Mimetic resemblances, and said that at Prof. Poulton's request 

 he had undertaken in the summers of 1909 and 1910 to make a 

 series of experiments in the Gardens to test the edibility of various 

 British insects, most of which were sent to him, together with 

 some slugs, by Dr. G. B. LongstafF. The insects comprised Lepi- 

 doptera, Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Hemiptera, Diptera, and Hy- 

 menoptera ; and the most interesting of the experiments were 

 those made with the Bumble-Bee [Bomhus) and its mimetic fly 

 {Volucella homhylans) to test the theory of mimicry. The Bomhus 

 proved to be unpalatable to nearly all birds. The birds would 

 try them a varying number of times. "When they had learnt 

 their distastefulness by experience they refused to touch them, 

 and then when ofi'ered the Vohicella refused that likewise. A 

 considerable number of species of insectivorovis birds were tested 

 in this way, and always with the same result ; and the one speci- 

 men of Volucella homhylans that did duty for some thirty or forty 

 experiments went through the ordeal untouched. 



Prof. G. C. Bourne, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S., read the second 

 portion of his paper on the Moi^phology of the group Neritoidea 

 of the Aspidobranch Gastropods, which dealt with the Helicinidse. 

 He stated that this family was capable, by some unknown means, 

 of wide dispersal across seas and oceans, and that the conditions 

 most suitable to its existence were found in proximity to the sea. 

 In describing the anatomy the genus Alcadia was taken as the 

 type, and the differences between it and the other genera were 

 pointed out, but the species and even the genera of Helicinidse 

 were closely similar, anatomically, from whatever part of the 

 world they came. 



